by Pamela Toth
“You’ve made this entire house wonderfully warm and cozy,” she replied as he put the hot pan on a trivet and set out the basket of bread. “Have you redone every room yourself?”
“Pretty much. I’ve still got some painting to finish and I didn’t do all of the remodeling.” After he held out her chair, he sat facing her and unfolded his napkin. “I bartered for the plumbing,” he explained as they helped themselves to the food.
She sprinkled grated cheese on her lasagna. “You set a sink and I’ll set your broken bone?” she asked.
“He needed a horse trained for his daughter so she could start barrel racing,” Chris replied with a chuckle. “As it turned out, I ended up setting her broken arm, too. I think he installed the ice maker for that.”
“Ouch.” Zoe puckered her lips into a pout that made him want to lean over and taste them. They looked slightly swollen, making him wonder if she was tender in other places, too.
Abruptly he covered her hand as it rested on the table. “I want you to know that what we have together isn’t just physical for me.” He stroked her smoothed skin with his thumb. Every inch of her was like satin, her scent far sweeter than a meadow filled with wildflowers. “It’s a lot more than that.”
She dropped her gaze to their hands. “Me, too,” she said, but she didn’t sound very happy about it.
When Chris dropped Zoe off at her car an hour later, she knew he was disappointed that she hadn’t responded with more enthusiasm to his earlier comment. Conversation had grown a little stilted after that. She had offered to help him clean up the dishes, but he’d seemed in a hurry to get rid of her.
“Are you okay?” she asked him now, after he had walked her to her car and held open the door. The street wasn’t busy. Under the glow from the streetlights, there was no one else around.
He grasped her elbows. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” He gave her a brief kiss. “Do you want me to follow you, just to make sure you get home safely?”
“Thanks, but it’s not necessary.” It would be so easy to get used to this, she realized, and to become dependent on him. The passion that flared between them was like a drug that made her powerless. When he smiled and she felt her control slipping away, she struggled to regain it.
“I think we need to slow things down,” she blurted.
Shock flared across his face, but then he swallowed and dredged up a smile. “If that’s what you want,” he conceded, “then of course that’s what we’ll do.”
His words filled her with relief at his willingness to let her set the pace. “Thank you,” she said, patting his cheek. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Later that night, she dreamed that she was sitting in a small rowboat, drifting away from shore on a dark, foggy night. She wanted to go back, but the oars were missing. When she tried to paddle with her hands, she realized she was chained to the empty oarlock.
As the tide carried her farther from shore, the mists parted and she saw a group of people standing on a dock watching her. Among them was her mother, wearing one of her expensive business suits. She was deep in conversation with a well-dressed older couple.
“Mom!” Zoe cried. “Help me!”
Patrice looked around and saw Zoe. She held up her briefcase. “I’ve got a meeting, dear,” she called. “You can manage on your own.” She and the couple disappeared through the crowd.
As the boat bobbed farther from shore, Zoe recognized her father standing near the edge of the dock with Marcus on his shoulder.
“Daddy!” Zoe cried, pulling on her chains more urgently. “I’m out here!”
Her father pointed her out to Marcus and then they both waved.
“Let’s go, Daddy,” Marcus said. “I’m hungry.”
“What about me?” Zoe shouted as they turned away. The boat was drifting faster now, the waves higher as they carried her farther out to sea. Even if she managed to free herself, she wasn’t sure she would be able to swim to shore on her own.
Suddenly she spotted a blond head in the crowd. Hope flared anew.
“Chris!” she shouted, rattling the chains frantically. “I can’t get loose and I’ve lost the oars.”
When he looked out over the water and saw her, she went limp with relief. For the first time, she noticed another boat tied up to the dock.
“Do something!” she screamed as the waves grew stronger and her boat rocked wildly. “Don’t let me go!”
He stood with his hands in his pockets as the fog thickened. “I’m doing what you asked,” he called back to her. “I’m giving you space.” He watched her, hands in his pockets, as the fog thickened.
In moments, the dock would disappear from sight. “Chris!” she pleaded more urgently. “Fight for me!”
Zoe woke up shivering under the blankets in a bed that felt as though it had been tossed helplessly about in a dark, menacing sea. She rolled over and reached out, hands free, but the bed was empty and she was alone.
Chris invited her to go with him to a small rodeo in a neighboring town on Saturday to watch him compete in the calf-roping event.
“It will be Denver’s first time out,” he added, leaning on the counter at one end of the admissions desk where Zoe was catching up on paperwork. “I’m eager to see how he performs in front of the crowd.”
Zoe glanced at the receptionist seated at the other end of the counter, but she was busy talking on the phone while she worked on the computer.
“I’d love to go, but I think I’ve got other plans,” Zoe replied, torn between temptation and hesitation.
His expression didn’t falter when he straightened away from the counter. “Sure, I understand. We’ll do it another time, then,” he said with his usual easy smile.
The receptionist hung up the phone. “Hello, Dr. Taylor,” she said. “Do you need anything?”
“No, thanks. I’m good,” he replied. “Well, I’d better get back to the E.R.,” he told Zoe. “See you later.”
Frustrated, she watched him saunter back through the double doors. He was letting her slip away without a struggle, she told herself, as though hanging on to what they had found with each other wasn’t worth the effort.
A few moments later when one of the nurses approached the counter, Zoe’s feelings were still a swirl of confusion.
“My son’s baseball league is having an equipment swap Saturday morning,” the nurse said. “I’m looking for volunteers to help out, if you’re interested.”
“Why not.” Zoe didn’t give herself time to reconsider. It wasn’t as though she had anything better to do this weekend.
When she walked into the gym on Saturday morning wearing jeans and an old college sweatshirt, the smell immediately reminded her of high school basketball games and PE class. PE had been her least favorite subject.
A woman sat at a table inside the door. Behind her was a sign that said Table Rental $10.
“I’m just here to help,” Zoe explained.
“We need all the help we can get,” she replied. “Go on in.”
A couple of men were setting up more tables around the perimeter of the gym while other people unloaded boxes of gear. A group of children played a noisy game of tag, darting around stacks of folding chairs, and a country song pumped out of a portable CD player on one of the tables.
“Hey, Doc Hart!” Nancy, the nurse who had asked her to come, introduced her to a heavyset woman in a faded red sweat suit.
“Maureen is in charge,” Nancy said. “This is Dr. Hart.”
“Please call me Zoe,” she corrected. “What can I do to help?”
Maureen consulted her clipboard, then looked around. “Why don’t the two of you set up some chairs,” she suggested. “Leave plenty of room for people to walk between the two rows of tables.”
“Thanks for coming,” Nancy said as she walked with Zoe to the pile of folded chairs. “The money we’ll make today will go into the league treasury.”
Zoe thought of Chris, wondering what time his calf-roping event st
arted. She would have enjoyed watching him compete, but it was her own dumb fault that she was here unfolding chairs instead.
She noticed a display holding aluminum bats and a rack of batting helmets. “Don’t the teams furnish all this stuff?” she asked Nancy as they walked past the equipment.
“Some of it, of course, bats and balls. Batting helmets.” Nancy carried a chair under each arm and Zoe did the same. “Kids need mitts and cleats,” Nancy continued. “They all outgrow shoes and not every parent can buy new ones each season, so they recycle the old ones. Today will be more buy and sell than actual swapping.”
She looked around her with hands on her ample hips. “That’s enough chairs for now. I need to run to the ladies’ room before the sale starts and then my son’s team is selling homemade cookies. Why don’t you check back with Maureen.”
When the work was done, Zoe ended up watching two little girls for a former patient who wanted to sell her older daughter’s outgrown equipment.
After Zoe bought the girls each a cookie from Nancy’s booth, she was walking them back to their mom when a boy barreled into her.
He looked up, red hair poking around the edges of his cap, and she recognized him instantly.
“Sorry, Dr. Hart!” Erik exclaimed, his freckled face glowing with excitement.
She gave his thin shoulder a reassuring pat. “No problem, Sport. Are you here with your dad?”
“Uh-uh,” he replied. “Dad had a meeting.”
“I brought him.”
She looked up, straight into Chris’s deep blue eyes. He, too, wore a baseball cap.
Guilt rushed through her, even though she had nothing to feel guilty about.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “I thought you’d be at the rodeo.”
His eyebrows rose in response to her tone. “Like my man here said, Cam had a meeting and I got recruited. Faith got called out at the last minute and this swap is too good to miss.” He glanced down at the boy beside him. “Right, Erik?”
“That’s right, Doc—Uncle Chris,” Erik replied, his gaze darting to Zoe. “He was going to ride his horse, but he said he’d much rather come here!”
Chris gave Zoe a warning glance, as though she might say the wrong thing and hurt the boy’s feelings. “Anytime, Buddy,” Chris replied. “Just think of me as a pinch hitter.”
“I need a mitt,” Erik announced. “Can we go and look before they’re all gone?”
“Check out what they’ve got at that table,” Chris replied. “I’m right behind you, so wait for me.”
Zoe watched Erik dart around a woman pushing a stroller, his bright green jacket making him easy to track.
Shifting to block Zoe’s path, Chris nudged her out of the aisle. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.
“They needed volunteers,” she replied. “Nancy Baumgartner asked me if I’d mind. Her son plays T-ball.”
He studied her face. “I didn’t know that you and Nancy were tight.”
“We work together,” she replied shortly, as though that explained everything. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
He nodded as though he was conceding a point.
“I’m surprised Cam isn’t buying new gear for Erik,” she commented, “especially when Faith works in a sporting-goods store.”
“He wanted to, but Erik’s heart is set on a mitt that’s already broken in, so here we are,” Chris explained.
“Uncle Chris!” Erik appeared at his arm, tugging at his sleeve. “I found a perfect mitt. The lady is holding it, but you gotta come quick!”
“You heard him,” Chris told Zoe. “I gotta go quick, so I’ll see you later.”
She was about to turn away and make her escape when she noticed her patient waving wildly from the table next to the one where Erik was waiting for Chris. Reluctantly Zoe followed him through the crowd.
“Can you watch my stuff for a minute?” the other woman asked as soon as Zoe got within hearing distance. She held up a cell phone. “My husband is calling from Seattle, and it’s too loud in here.”
“Sure,” Zoe said. “Go ahead.”
After the woman hurried away with her daughters in tow, Zoe sat down next to the bats and three pairs of girls’ cleats that looked pretty worn. She was watching the people walk by when she heard Erik’s voice over the buzz of conversation.
“I asked her first!” He sounded upset.
When Zoe stood up, she could see that he and another boy had hold of the same mitt.
“I want this one!” the boy told his dad, who stood next to Chris. “It’s Tommy Herbert’s old glove.”
Chris reached for the mitt, attempting to extricate it from the boys. “Sorry, son,” he said. “My nephew’s right. He saw it first.”
The other boy tried to yank it away. “No!” he cried. “You can’t have it.”
A circle opened up around the table as other people stopped to watch the exchange, but Zoe had a clear view from her chair. The other man stood half a head shorter than Chris. In the sea of T-shirts and jeans, he was dressed in an elegant designer suit. When he turned, she glimpsed his hawklike profile above the knot of his tie that was similar to the ones her father wore, probably Italian silk.
“You heard him, kid,” he told Erik in a deep, booming voice as he took out his wallet. “You need to find a different mitt.” He looked at the woman behind the table, whose cheeks were flushed crimson with embarrassment. “How much?” he demanded.
Haltingly she named a figure that sounded reasonable to Zoe.
Chris was still hanging on to the mitt while Erik’s lip jutted out and he looked ready to cry. “We’re buying it,” Chris said firmly as he held out some bills to the woman.
Erik’s lip retreated and he grinned up at Chris.
“I’ll double it,” the other man said.
The woman’s hand froze in midair without taking Chris’s money, as her gaze darted back and forth. “My son was the league MVP for three years running,” she said proudly. “The mitt’s a Wilson that I probably priced way too low.”
Chris leaned down and said something to Erik that was drowned out by the other boy’s whine. When Chris straightened again, Zoe expected to see his accommodating smile as he let the other boy win but instead, his expression remained firm.
“Did you agree to hold the glove for my nephew?” he asked the woman.
Her head bobbed. “Yeah, but—”
“To be fair, I’ll give you what this gentleman offered,” he continued, cutting her off. “That’s all I’m prepared to pay.”
The other boy’s face turned red and his wail grew louder. “I want it, I want it, I want it!” he chanted.
“You heard him,” the suit exclaimed, his voice rising as he took out more bills and waved them in front of the seller’s face. “I’ll double the price again.”
Her eyes widened and she licked her lips. The people who had been murmuring to each other behind their hands suddenly fell silent.
“Put your money away,” Chris said quietly. “It’s already sold.”
Zoe couldn’t see his expression, but when he held out the money the woman snatched it before taking a step backward. Zoe doubted that she was looking at Chris’s easygoing grin after all.
With a firm tug, he pulled the mitt away from the other boy and handed it to Erik, who wrapped his arms around the worn leather as though he were holding a brand-new puppy.
“Thank you!” he crowed, wearing a huge grin. “It’s a winner. I can feel it!”
“Okay, friend, I know your game,” the other man snarled, looking over his shoulder at the fascinated spectators as his boy tugged on his expensive suit jacket and blubbered out his disappointment. “I’ve got a plane to catch, so just tell me how much you want for the damn thing.”
Finally Chris’s smile blossomed. He touched his fingers to the brim of his hat in a mocking gesture as he urged Erik away from the table. “Sorry, friend. It’s not for sale.”
The man
glared. “It will take more than a mitt to make that little runt into a decent player.”
Chris stiffened and leaned down until the two men were nose to nose. Zoe hoped he never turned that icy expression on her.
“My nephew’s not a runt,” he said in a voice that could have cut glass, “but you’re acting like a jerk in front of your boy. I think you should probably go catch your flight.”
Zoe felt a rush of pride as she stared at Chris’s determined profile. His quiet strength was evident in every line of his body as he faced down the other man. It was all she could do to keep from running over and throwing her arms around Chris’s neck.
It wasn’t merely pride flowing through her, she realized. It was love.
All her fears had come true.
“Yeah!” came a shout from the back of the crowd. “You tell him, Doc.” A couple of other murmurs rose up, too.
Finally Maureen pushed her way through to the table and turned to face them with the clipboard still pressed to her ample chest.
“This has gone on long enough,” she announced in a clear voice. “This transaction is final.”
She turned her gaze on the man in the suit. “You, sir, are setting a poor example to our young athletes. You need to leave and the rest of you might as well move on. The sale’s over in a half hour.”
While Zoe continued to watch, Chris glanced down at Erik, whose smile had morphed into a worried frown. “Do you need shoes?” Chris asked.
Still clutching the mitt, Erik shook his head. “My new mom’s using her discount at Extension Sports,” he said clearly.
His comment brought on a few chuckles as people moved on. Maureen tried to apologize to Chris, but he brushed her words aside. “Don’t worry about it.”
The woman whose table Zoe had been minding reappeared with her kids. “Thanks so much,” she said. “I guess I missed the entertainment, but my husband’s been gone for nearly a week on business and I’ve been dying to talk to him.”
“No problem,” Zoe replied, forcing a smile to lips that felt numb.